As Trump Shrinks FEMA, State and Local Emergency Managers Say They’re Barely Getting By – Inside Climate News

For months, President Donald Trump threatened to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency, arguing that it is “extremely expensive” and that emergency management should be left to the states. 

“When you have a tornado or a hurricane or you have a problem of any kind, in a state, that’s what you have governors for,” he said in June. “They’re supposed to fix those problems, and it’s much more local and they’ll develop a system, and it will be a great system.”

Emergency management experts warned that suddenly shutting off the funding and resources FEMA provides to local and state agencies was literally a recipe for disaster. Now a new study from the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory provides comprehensive data to back those assertions up. 

Even before Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem began to slow or stop federal funding for emergency management, many smaller agencies at the state level and below were already struggling to fulfill core functions, the survey shows. 

The failure of local officials in Kerr County, Texas, to adequately prepare for deadly flash flooding earlier this month highlighted this fact—and even prompted the administration to reconsider completely eliminating FEMA, although the agency’s fate remains uncertain. Reuters reported in May that FEMA had lost about a third of its full-time staff since Trump took office. 

Researchers surveyed more than 1,600 state and local emergency management directors across the country, collecting responses between August 2024 and March 2025. Survey respondents reported they were “overworked, underpaid, understaffed, and underappreciated.” They said their work was hamstrung by a lack of funding, staffing shortages, organizational challenges and widespread misunderstanding about the role of emergency management in government. Many had little time to think strategically or long-term about their work. 

“In local emergency management we’re mostly just trying to keep our heads above water,” one director explained.

In a statement to Inside Climate News, an Argonne National Laboratory spokesperson said the study was developed “at the request of FEMA as part of a broader, data-driven effort to better understand emergency management capacity across state, local, and territorial jurisdictions.” FEMA did not respond to a request for comment.

“This report really highlights how dangerous what the Trump administration is proposing is and has already begun to do,” said Samantha Montano, an associate professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and the author of the book “Disasterology.” 

Before Trump’s second term, climate change and increasing disaster risk in the United States had already stretched local and state emergency management thin. But the compounding effects of cancelled funding and federal chaos has “created a crisis,” she said. 

“You have to ensure that there is capacity at the state level in particular to make up for [federal resources],” Montano said. “And what the report very clearly shows is that capacity does not exist.”

At all levels of government surveyed, “lack of funding and insufficient staffing” were the two top challenges faced by emergency management directors, with a majority identifying these factors as “significant.” While a majority of state emergency management directors said they were “mostly meeting the needs of their communities,” only eight percent said they were “completely” meeting community needs.

“You have to ensure that there is capacity at the state level in particular to make up for [federal resources]. And what the report very clearly shows is that capacity does not exist.”

— Samantha Montano, Massachusetts Maritime Academy

Federal funding in the form of Emergency Management Performance Grants from FEMA is keeping many local organizations afloat, especially in smaller counties. “Without the current use of EMPG, I would have to close my doors. It literally helps me keep the lights on,” one director told researchers. Without these grants, “we would no longer be able to stay open.” 

The need for easier and more streamlined access to federal funding and grants was reiterated by several respondents, as well as an appreciation for FEMA training workshops and online resources. 

“We need FEMA to continue to underwrite things … those big assets that no single jurisdiction can afford to maintain on their own,” another said. “We need federal support.”

Emergency managers said they had trouble attracting and keeping staff because the pay is too low. A number of people in local emergency management are volunteers or work on a part-time basis. Twenty-two percent of respondents said their department had no paid, permanent full-time employee (or equivalent) on staff. Twenty-nine percent said their department had just one such employee. 

“That is one of the main root problems of everything else in emergency management,” Montano said. “If you only have one person or less than a person working full time or a volunteer doing emergency management, it’s just not possible for you to do all of the things that we know an effective emergency manager would do.” 

In an office with only one employee, the possibility of taking sick days or time off disappears. Employees reported always being on call.

The survey asked what they would do if they received additional funding. Increasing salaries and hiring new employees was a common response. “I would raise my salary to a living wage. I’m about to have to leave the industry,” one said. 

Burnout, stress and high turnover have had a serious impact on employees. “We really struggle out here,” one respondent from a poorer county said. “That affects our response, it affects our morale, and it affects whether we can continue to do our jobs and whether we migrate somewhere else because the stress and lack of pay simply mean we have to go somewhere else.” 

Respondents said they were often tasked with tackling duties outside of emergency management like snow removal, homelessness and the opioid crisis. This burden made it more difficult to focus on the key responsibilities of an emergency manager: preparedness, prevention, mitigation, response and recovery.

The report concluded that one of the qualities of a successful emergency management agency was independence. Emergency management is sometimes housed within other departments like the Sheriff’s Office, which complicates communication with other officials and can create conflicts of interest. FEMA’s location in the Department of Homeland Security is a national example of this problem, Montano said: Fear of the department’s immigration agents can keep undocumented immigrants away from FEMA shelters, even though FEMA is not a law enforcement agency. 

A new bipartisan proposal in Congress would make FEMA its own cabinet-level agency. 

Respondents to the national survey said confusion about the function of emergency management was one of the barriers to receiving more funding and support locally and on the state level. Elected officials and the public don’t always understand why these agencies are important or what they do. One emergency manager said they reported to “three County Commissioners who have no idea what my agency does or is responsible for.” Emergency managers are “undervalued” when things are calm and “critiqued for not doing more” when disaster strikes, the report noted. 

The report’s conclusions “very much validated what most of us have thought is going on in the field for a long time,” Montano said. Previous, more limited surveys and anecdotal evidence hinted at a “serious lack of capacity at the local and state levels,” she said. “That’s the real value of this report. It gives us an empirical foundation for starting to address a lot of these capacity problems through policy.”

Despite the challenges of working in the field, some emergency managers who responded to the survey expounded on their dedication and loyalty to their jobs. “I am overworked, underpaid and I love my job,” one said.“I love what I do, I just wish others would too. Not just saying it; but meaning it as well,” said another. 

Above all, a culture of making do with less was typical: “My team is fantastic at making things work and doing what they can with what they have,” one respondent said. “I wish it wasn’t that way.”